SCP-8001 and the island of Last Watch, as approached from the east.
| Assigned Site | Site Director | Research Head | Assigned Task Force |
| Site-99 | Dr. Kaitlyn Kota | Dr. Carter Christian | Ω-91 "Sentinels" |
Особые условия содержания: В связи с относительной сложностью достижения SCP-8001 без посторонней помощи, SCP-8001 считается практически самосодержащимся. С момента обнаружения SCP-8001 сотрудниками Организации и основания на острове базы операций в радиусе 150 км от любой из точек входа появилось всего три гражданских судна, ни одно из которых не удовлетворяло остальным требованиям для прохода через любую из них.
Mobile Task Force Ω-91 "Sentinels" will maintain a persistent perimeter around the most common access points to SCP-8001 by way of a single Raymond Howe-class patrol vessel to be anchored at the K-162 floating research platform, roughly 25km from access point "Aleph".
Gaining access to SCP-8001 is not a well understood process. Personnel attempting to reach SCP-8001 and the island of Last Watch should observe Protocol 8001-105 (detailed later in this document), which dictates the position, orientation, date, time of day, and atmospheric characteristics vessels are believed to need in order to pass into SCP-8001. Failed attempts to pass into SCP-8001 will result in the vessel simply ending up further west than SCP-8001's understood position, at which point vessels may return to K-162 to attempt passage at a later date.
SCP-8001 can only be accessed by a floating vessel. Flying machines, such as airplanes, helicopters, airships, or gliders will inevitably find themselves blinded by the clouds of water vapor that surround SCP-8001, regardless of the altitude or speed they are flying at, and regardless of their proximity to a vessel that makes successful passage. SCP-8001 causes significant interference with radar and other imaging devices, making tracking vessels passing in and out of SCP-8001 difficult. Similarly, submersible vessels cannot pass into SCP-8001 unless they are surfaced throughout their passage, as direct line of sight with Last Watch is believed to be a prerequisite required to make the journey.
The existence of SCP-8001 is routinely discussed within fringe internet communities and other "flat earth" groups, making information suppression of SCP-8001 relatively simple due to obfuscation by association. The existence of SCP-8001 does not negate the truth of the Earth being spherical, and the makeup of communities determined to assert the existence of SCP-8001 or discover its location (along with the rhetoric used and adjacent conspiracy theories touted as fact by their membership) act as an informal barrier against discovery by more serious civilian scientific entities.
В данный момент пересечь гранью SCP-8001 и выжить при этом не представляется возможным. Лица, пересёкшие SCP-8001, считаются пропавшими без вести.
Башня Заката на Острове Последнего дозора, расположенная на краю SCP-8001. Вид с дрона, подведённого с западной стороны.
Описание: SCP-8001 представляет собой край планеты Земля. Геологические, географические или онтологические данные о происхождении SCP-8001 отсутствуют, и в свете очевидной и научно доказанной сферичности планеты его существование представляется логически невозможным; изучение природы этого противоречия служит основным предметом академических исследований назначенных на SCP-8001 сотрудников. SCP-8001 не является экстрапланарным пространством или карманным измерением - исследовательские команды, квартирующиесяв в Зоне 99 на острове Последнего Дозора получают сигналы GPS, в состоянии пользоваться спутниковой связью для совершения телефонных звонков или цифровой передачи информации, а также запускать сигнальные ракеты или огни, которые можно наблюдать и вне аномальной зоны SCP-8001.
SCP-8001 exists as a sheer edge running north to south in the southern Pacific Ocean, over which the waters of the Pacific flow freely into an indeterminably deep void beyond. Approaches to SCP-8001 by ship are precarious - vessels can easily get caught in the rapidly moving water and be swept over the edge unless they follow a carefully charted path that maneuvers them past a series of shoals that break up the flow of water, which ends up in a sheltered bay at the island of Last Watch. This same passage can be made in reverse, allowing vessels to transit to and from SCP-8001 with relative safety, so long as they are following the correct passageway.
SCP-8001 порождает значительный объем водяного пара, скрывающего окрестности SCP-8001 от внешнего наблюдателя (SCP-8001 невозможно увидеть со спутника или любой другой камеры с видом сверху, включая запущенные изнутри SCP-8001). Неизвестно, как далеко SCP-8001 простирается на север и юг, поскольку любые попытки отплыть на корабле от Последнего Дозора приводят к падению судна за край SCP-8001, любые же попытки сделать то же самое приводят к потере воздушного судна или к его исчезновению за облаками водяного пара.
One of several remains of wooden sailing vessels wrecked on the shallow shoals around the island of Last Watch. Due to the damage incurred over many years of decay, the age and origin of these vessels are difficult to determine.
Доступная для навигации часть прилежащих к SCP-8001 вод оканчиваются у скального козырька, поднимающегося с морского дна и формирующего небольшой остров площадью около 1.2 км2. На восточном берегу острова расположена окруженная мелководьем небольшая бухта, из которой можно добраться до остальной территории острова через узкую лестницу, вырезанную в скале. Центральная и северная части острова имеют практически плоский рельеф; в этой области произрастет множество видов деревьев, трав и кустарников1. На юге этого участка расположен небольшой каменистый холм с небольшим кладбищем, к западу же находится каменный выступ, нависающий над краем SCP-8001. По его краю проходит грубый деревянный настил, которым можно воспользоваться для беспрепятственного прохода над гранью SCP-8001 без риска упасть.
It is upon the flat wooded area that the Tower of Sunset is located, a moderately sized stone structure built in many conflicting architectural styles, likely over the course of many hundreds or thousands of years. The primary exterior portions of the tower are built in the ancient Roman ionic style, with the westward facing portico being an open gallery of limestone pillars supporting a triangular pediment, which extends back into a mostly rectangular inner cella that has been added onto on all sides. There are examples of 17th century Spanish and 5th century Chinese influences, as well as more modern architecture dating as late as the early 19th century, with some fixtures being identified as originating from Britain, the United States, France, and the Netherlands. The primary (and seemingly oldest) feature of the tower is the tower itself, which is constructed in a mixture of Greek, Egyptian, Roman, and Mesoamerican styles.
The reflector dish for the Tower of Sunset lighthouse.
The tower serves two distinct purposes. Its primary role is as an oil lamp and reflector lighthouse, which is maintained by an 18th century automatic re-lighting system that appears to have at some point been retrofitted with more modern bearings and timing elements. The secondary role is as a library; the main floor of the tower, as well as most of the tower itself and the two small basement levels all serve as an information repository for texts and writings seemingly collected over several hundred years of exploration that ended at SCP-8001. There are examples of journals, logs, charts, maps, diaries, and other texts in a wide variety of languages, including Latin, French, Greek, Farsi, English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Urdu, Portuguese, Amharic, and many others, as well as pictographic languages such as Nahuatl and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The collection also contains a single piece of modern digital media storage - an early model Sony .mp3 player, manufactured in 2003, within a watertight plastic case, which is believed to have washed up on the island entirely by chance. Despite its watertight case, the .mp3 player was damaged irrevocably by water ingress and is no longer operable.
An unusually ornate section of the Tower of Sunset library, including furnishings and woodwork believed to have been repurposed from a Portuguese merchant vessel.
Much care has been made to preserve the texts within the library at the Tower of Sunset, as evident by the significant amount of technology that has been fitted into the original ancient structures over many years to reduce the effects of moisture, light, and aging on the texts contained therein. Many of the texts have been transliterated from their ancient sources into newer, more resilient articles, but there are many that have decayed past the point of legibility. The oldest known piece of writing on the island, a set of Egyptian tablets dating back to what is believed to be at least 2300 BCE, are worn down past the point where they could be translated and are preserved only as a reference point. The most recent document found on the island prior to the Foundation's discovery of it in 1944, was a Chinese sea chart believed to have been printed in 1925, altered significantly in an apparent attempt by the owner to make sense of SCP-8001, and to attempt to chart a path away from it.
Prior to the Foundation's arrival, the island of Last Watch had a single inhabitant - a sentient mechanical construct who maintained both the library and the lighthouse, as well as being a general caretaker of the island grounds. This entity, identified as SCP-8001-A, self-identified as "Aurélie", and claimed to be the reconstituted sapience of a 16th century French explorer who had been marooned on the island at some point in the past. SCP-8001-A is a clockwork entity, whose locomotion and speech are controlled by a complex series of gears, diaphragms, pistons, and pulleys, all designed to mimic human behaviour. For more information on SCP-8001-A, please see Addendum 8001.2 below.
Addendum 8001.1: Discovery
The existence of SCP-8001 has been thoroughly debunked throughout most of human history, with early Greeks having conceptualized a spherical Earth as early as the 5th century BCE, and with Eratosthenes calculation of the circumference of the planet in 240 BCE the recognition of the Earth as a sphere became more widespread. Despite this, there have been numerous fringe groups throughout history who have, at different times, claimed the existence of the world as a flat plane with an "edge" running around its exterior. The first known exploration to discover this edge is believed to have been by the ancient Roman sailor Faust Strabo who, having set sail to discover the far west in the year 45 CE, instead ran into hardship as his ship and crew were marooned near modern day Casablanca, their vessel having been unsuitable for blue water travel.
Portuguese map of the known world, circa 1502. SCP-8001 is identified in text on the far right as "Oceanus Terminum".
Despite this, numerous instances of writing related to the edge of the earth persist within the historical record. Chinese writer Han Jinhai, writing in the 4th century CE, describes at length an account of fishing vessels and their crews who, having been blown off course by a terrible storm, found themselves "adrift in calm waters amidst a roaring tempest at the place where the world ends". Additionally, a 13th century account of an Indian vessel being lost on the high seas makes note of a "terrible sound in the deep sea, as if the ocean itself were spilling over, and great sheets of white foam fell from the sky onto us". While these accounts do not describe the island of Last Watch or any of the structures thereon, it does perhaps provide the first accounts of individuals who approached SCP-8001 and then returned. It is possible (and indeed likely, considering the age of the Tower of Sunset) that there were many more vessels who approached SCP-8001 and either did not leave written record of their return to the rest of the world, were unable to leave, or as is believed to be the case with the vast majority of vessels, attempted to reach or depart SCP-8001 and were sent over the edge to their doom.
The possible existence of SCP-8001 was first made apparent to the SCP Foundation by way of a manuscript discovered during a series of arranged document transfers between the Foundation and the Horizon Initiative. The document in question, a detailed sea chart by Russian engineer and seafarer Boris Kozlov2, contained an extensive description of the nature of SCP-8001, including a depiction of the Tower of Sunset. The heading of the note reads as follows:
A map of, and possible additional routes to, the long line at the end of the Earth, and the tall tower that rests there, which by way of a bright light gives warning to vessels in their approach to a catastrophic end which, by passing beyond, offers no hope of life or continuance of any kind…
Due to the presumed remote location and logical impossibility of SCP-8001, no action was taken to seek out and ascertain the existence of SCP-8001. The chart was held in storage at Site-19 until March of 1942, when a Foundation vessel sailing between Panama and Auckland, NZ passed close enough to SCP-8001 to see "a lighthouse, shining clearly, where no land is charted and no abnormality is known to exist." Further investigation of the area in the year following this initial passage revealed no sign of land - however, teams working to identify the unusual sighting rediscovered the Kozlov Chart in storage and, using it as a rough guide, were able to make the first confirmed, intended sighting of the Tower of Sunset in October of 1943. Early the following year, two additional voyages were undertaken to attempt to reach SCP-8001. The first of these lost contact with a radio station in French Polynesia and was never heard from again3. The second expedition, lead by Captain Erol Meyer and the ship SCPS Windswept, found the passageway through the shoals near SCP-8001 and moored at the Island of Last Watch.
Приложение 8001.2: SCP-8001-A
Капитан Мэйер, along with a contingent of researchers из Зоны 402, были первыми, кто вступил в контакт с SCP-8001-A, who had noticed their approach and was waiting for the team near the small dock by the bay. SCP-8001-A was described by Captain Meyer as:
…a peculiar contraption, possessing unmistakably mechanical features yet resembling a human figure in a curious manner. Clad in a modest gown and drab cloak, it boasts a slender frame of admirable craftsmanship and aesthetic appeal. Silhouetted against the light, one might easily mistake it for a woman, save for the moment it engages in conversation, dispelling any such illusion. Though its physical construction is a marvel of engineering, its method of articulation appears antiquated by contemporary standards. Nevertheless, its speech, though tinged with a discernible French inflection, is articulate and confident, bearing no resemblance to the mechanical mimicry of human speech…
The initial interview with SCP-8001-A was conducted by Dr. Ivan Mann, who had accompanied Captain Meyer on the expedition, and was recorded. A transcript of this recording is below.
Addendum 8001.3: Excerpts from Collected Documents
The following are several excerpts from documents archived within the Tower of Sunset, provided by SCP-8001-A, which reference SCP-8001 itself.
From the 14th century journal of Eduardo Genevese:
…a sight of great profundity, to behold the waves of the vast ocean surging downward into the heavens. Gazing intently into the mist, one discerns somber silhouettes – mayhap stones or vessels ensnared below, yet to plummet into the abyss. The sensation that grips the soul whilst standing upon this precipice is naught but a communion betwixt mortal and the divine. Such an overpowering apprehension of ultimate fate could only be ordained by the hand of God.
From a 4th century text, likely Byzantine in origin:
Verily, this locale stands as the vestibule to the celestial realm beyond our earthly abode, for hither lies the limit where mortal feet may not tread. The splendor that graces this hallowed ground suffices as testament to its verity.
From a document written by 17th century entrepreneur and explorer John Russell:
5th of August, the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and twenty six,
On this present day, the hour of man's ascendancy hath arrived! Lo, we have accomplished the craft of aerial conveyance, a marvel to behold. The fabric unfurls beneath the radiant beams of dawn, whilst His Majesty's ensign dances aloft in the breeze. Yea, this day heralds our ascent into the heavens, to venture unto those far-off realms that lie beyond the confines of our terrestrial sphere, realms hitherto untrodden by mortal foot, and from whence few have returned! Verily, the mechanical contrivance, in its semblance of sentience, hath voiced its dissent against our enterprise. Yet let it be known henceforth that the apprehensions of the Gauls shall not today dissuade the steadfast resolve of the noble progeny of England!
From a document transliterated from its original, now lost, text:
Before us, the earth seemed to fall away into nothingness, a sheer drop into oblivion that stretched as far as the eye could see. The horizon, once a distant promise of new horizons and uncharted territories, now marked the boundary between existence and the great unknown.
Приложение 8001.4: Дневник лорда Теодора Томаса Блэквуда
Среди каталогизированных документов, найденных в Башне Заката, были обнаружены выдержки из дневника лорда Теодора Томаса Блэквуда, самопровозглашенного исследователя, натуралиста и "Покорителя неизведанных миров". Стоит отметить, что лорд Блэквуд в настоящее время поставлен на содержание в Зоне 19 с присвоением идентификатора SCP-1867.
Найденный в архивах Башни Заката дневник displays the characteristic bravado of its author throughout, up until the entry describing Lord Blackwood's team having found SCP-8001. С этого места записи становятся значительно более сжатыми и сокращенными, описывая в краткой форме изучение острова его группой, короткий разговор с "умным автоматоном, изображающим жителя Парижа, неусыпно следящим за состоянием систем свечения маяка", before saying a prayer and departing to the east. Текст дневника настолько заметно не сходится с известным образом предполагаемого автора, что вскоре по возвращении из первой экспедиции к SCP-8001 д-р Манн назначил интервью с SCP-1867 для обсуждения этой находки.
Ниже приведена запись этой беседы.
Addendum 8001.5: Дневник Adán Седано, Хранителя Башни
That morning I descended from the tower as the rays of the sun stretched their golden fingers across the island, casting long shadows that danced upon the edges of the tower's walls. There, beneath the shade of the ancient rosewoods, sat the aged watchman, his gaze fixed upon the distant western sky. His countenance, weathered by the years of solitary toil in the care of our archives, bore a rare tranquility as I approached to offer my aid for the day's tasks, and perhaps a tome to occupy his leisure.
It is his smile that lingers most vividly in my memory - a serene expression that had eluded him for many a season. The passage of time had etched deep furrows upon his visage, yet on that morn, his gruff demeanor gave way to a moment of geniality as he bid me join him in silent contemplation, the morning light shimmering upon the drops of water.
Inquiring after my youth, he sought tales of my past life in the Holy Land, of my lineage and upbringing. Recollections of distant memories stirred within me as I recounted my aspirations of exploration and worldly discovery, while he, in turn, recounted his own past endeavors and aspirations. "Once," he confessed, "I harbored dreams of following in my father's footsteps as a carpenter, a shipwright. Yet fate had other designs."
In the ensuing discourse, he regaled me with tales of his travels, his loves, his fears, and the myriad wonders and oddities encountered in his journeys across distant lands. Enthralled, I listened intently as he spun his tales into the weft of time.
As twilight draped its cloak upon the world, he turned to me with a gaze brimming with fervent resolve, as though seeking answers within my very soul. He spoke of the enigmatic nature of our abode, where countless odysseys had reached their terminus, their mysteries left unresolved. In a voice weighted with solemnity, he posed a question that lingered in the air like the echoes of a forgotten lament: What worth, he asked, did such answers hold for a man? What worth did they hold for me? Bereft of an adequate response, I could only ponder his words in silence.
That night, he bestowed upon me his cherished journal, bidding me to add it to our repository come the morrow. "Tomorrow," he declared, "let it join the annals of our record. I fear I have naught more to impart."
Come the dawn, I awoke to find him gone, leaving behind naught but folded robes and sandals beneath the ancient rosewoods. His absence lingered as a silent testament to the transient nature of existence, and I never beheld his countenance again.
Приложение 8001.6: Диалог с SCP-8001-A
The following is a transcript of a conversation between доктором Айвеном Манном и SCP-8001-A, upon the former's return to SCP-8001-A in 19484. SCP-8001-A подошел к доктору Манну в тот момент, когда тот записывал транскрипцию своих аудиодневников, что позволило ему легко записать последующий разговор.